


It's a Long, Hard Life (he did it for Love)

by fourtytwo



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Bookstores, Fluff, IKEA, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Weird Theology, a Real one where you can actually buy the books, crowley is sensitive about eden, dream horror, god i wish that were me, pre- and post-armageddidn't, ruthless bullying of plants, slowest of burns, soft angst, tags added with later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-05-13 14:58:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19253515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourtytwo/pseuds/fourtytwo
Summary: Crowley is sometimes more snake than he is man, and often more man than he is demon. He wants things to be warm.





	1. Chapter 1

Crowley is sometimes more snake than he is man, and often more man than he is demon. Aziraphale reflects on this fact as Crowley is wrapped around his legs, arms about his hips, and head rested gently on his stomach. There's an awful amount of sharp edges pressed into Aziraphale, but not nearly as many as there are impossible contortions.

"What kind of snake were you supposed to be, anyway?" he asks, jostling Crowley slightly.

"Python?" Crowley replies, voice thick and sleepy. "Why? am I s'posed to know a Latin name?"

Aziraphale closes his eyes, letting memory drift into the present.

"I _thought_ you looked like a python, but I _also_ thought pythons were supposed to be a bit… chunkier. You're currently stabbing me with about a dozen different bones."

"I'm long and flexible," Crowley says, with no insignificant indignance. "That not enough for you anymore?" He props his pointy chin up on Aziraphale's stomach to look at him with heavy-lidded, slit-pupiled eyes.

"Oof— and that's one more mortal wound for the afternoon—"

"Isn't it lucky then, that you aren't mortal." Crowley somehow slithers underneath Aziraphale's body and rests his head in the nook below the angel's arm. "Is this more comfortable for you, angel?"

He nods, but Crowley has already closed his eyes again. It is _so_ comfortable here, lounged and entangled on a couch in the back of the bookshop. It happens more and more often now that the Antichrist has been born and they can make a coordinated effort to neutralize him. Aziraphale cannot decide whether this is one of their eras where they are simply this familiar, or one where they are something more. He wants—has always wanted—more. But in the dead of winter, he suspects all Crowley wants is a heat source. Bonus points if said heat source is well-padded and shares all the inside jokes.

The bookshop's bell jingles, and Aziraphale stiffens, ready to jump up. Their couch is far in the back, where he has enough time to compose himself and shove Crowley out the door if it's Gabriel. And if it is a real customer, he should be ready to discourage them from buying his books.

“I’m getting up,” he tells Crowley. Although he’s not sure Crowley is listening, given the soft, slow hissing that he’s learned to recognize as snake-demon snoring. Aziraphale pushes himself up off the couch, taking pains to disturb Crowley as little as possible.

The bell turns out to have been a human couple; two young women holding gloved hands came in to escape the cold. They drift quietly amongst the aisles while Aziraphale sits on his stool behind the counter. He peers at them over his glasses, letting his angelic energy wash freely over the shop. In weather like this, they deserve to feel as safe and warm as possible.

There’s some noise in the aisles now, where he can’t see. Crowley emerges, looking sleepy but smug. Aziraphale sighs heavily, watching one of the shelves wobble and hearing a soft gasp. Crowley leans against the counter, gaze parallel with Aziraphale’s.

“Haven’t I said several things about tempting people in the shop, my dear?” Aziraphale says.

Crowley shrugs. “I’m just promoting love and romance. I’m practically doing your job for you, angel,” he replies. “But yes, you have said several things.”

The couple slides red-faced out of the shelves, realizing that perhaps a not-quite-empty bookshop wasn’t the right place to get so close. The dust was, after all, very thick, and could make someone sneeze rather loud. Aziraphale has the brief, wistful thought that he’d maybe like to be pushed up against a bookshelf like that.

The door opens and closes again with a cheerful jingle, and they are alone again. Crowley leans away from the counter, and then hops up to sit on top of it. Aziraphale knows that Crowley knows he hates that.

“I had a great idea just now,” Crowley says. He takes off his sunglasses. This is what Aziraphale really hates about him sitting on the counter: he gets ideas. “Instead of just guarding your hoard of ancient and cobwebbed books like some grandfatherly dragon, you could keep them as a private collection and open a real bookshop. Like a real used book shop.” Crowley looks at him with bright golden eyes. They’re gleaming with real excitement right now. His whole face is gleaming, really—Aziraphale wonders what’s gotten into him.

“A _real_ bookshop.”

“Yeah,” Crowley says. He doesn’t seem to have picked up on any of Aziraphale’s skepticism. “With a load of shabby paperbacks and a dozen copies of the same trashy novels, and maybe a cat.” He looks around the existing bookshop. “Take donations, match people up with their perfect book, digitize your precious first editions.”

“That sounds very _nice_ , Crowley.” He pronounces every syllable with great precision. “Are you feeling alright?”

Crowley snaps his gaze back to make eye contact with Aziraphale again. “Don’t say that.” He frowns. “I’m just trying to make you happy, because I’m cold, and… you have this way of making everything all warm… when you’re happy.”

“Ah. Plugging in your heater for the winter, are you?” Aziraphale huffs with amusement. “Only took you until January.”

“You just reminded me then. With the girls. The whole shop felt like you finally managed to get the radiator working.”

“They were cold! And mortals are the only reason I have a radiator to begin with. It’s not like I need one.” This was true. Aziraphale, despite having very cold hands, had a very warm body, which was one of the reasons Crowley liked to lounge with him. Crowley had very warm hands (all the better for giving people uncomfortably sweaty handshakes), but his body temperature floated somewhere around room temperature; if the average mortal were allowed to touch him, his skin would feel very cold.

“But is it a bad idea?” Crowley asks. “I wouldn’t want to give you any bad ideas, after all.” Aziraphale has noticed before that Crowley has a desperate hopefulness when he’s chilly. When Crowley wants heat, he’ll do anything to get it. Even, apparently, suggest very _nice_ ideas to angels.

There’s some remodelling to be done, to make the bookshop look like one could buy a book from it. Crowley coerces some burly men to move Aziraphale’s heavy, ornate bookcases into one of the front corners. They can be seen from the window (at least, they will, after the windows are finally cleaned) and form a cozy nook around a pair of armchairs. One chair is white, the other is black, and between them stands a really stupid-looking end table shaped like a crudely-painted, orange octopus holding up a glass sheet. Neither of them really likes the table, but Crowley saw it in a second-hand shop and knew Aziraphale would hate it.

Some of the new shelves are also purchased second-hand for very cheap, but Crowley has a specific, discerning aesthetic that Aziraphale can only dilute so much. So they go to IKEA. The concept of IKEA, as a whole, was Aziraphale’s, but at some point during its development, Crowley had interfered with the layout and navigation of the warehouse.

They end up hopelessly lost.

“Angeeeeeel…” Crowley whines. “Why do _I_ have to carry the box?” Crowley did not _have_ to carry the box; he had watched Aziraphale struggle to lift it for about thirty seconds before picking it up himself. Strange enough, it wasn’t nearly as heavy as it had been when Aziraphale was trying. (There are significant benefits to cheating at everything.)

“You are carrying the box because it keeps your hands full, and I won’t have you tempting anyone,” Aziraphale replies. “Now, if I can only figure out where in the heav— where the devi— where on _Earth_ we are, we can finally get ourselves some of those delightful Swedish meatballs.” He flags down an employee in a cheery yellow shirt to ask for directions.

“I don’t need to tempt anyone, you already gave in to sloth for making me carry the box for you.” Crowley grins in a way that shows off all of his teeth. The IKEA employee’s eyes widen with great concern. They are directed to the restaurant.

The meatballs are pretty nice, considering that they’re from a restaurant inside a furniture store. Crowley doesn’t order anything, but he does steal one from Aziraphale’s plate. And swallows it whole.

An attempt is made to build the shelves together.

“Why are we several pieces short?” Aziraphale asks. “I could have sworn I’d accounted for everything _before_ we started, but then you came back with the tea and….”

Crowley doesn’t respond.

“Crowley! Where did they go?”

He gestures vaguely around, refusing to make eye contact even though he’s still wearing his sunglasses.

“You know what?” Aziraphale puts on his stubborn face. “Out. I am going to finish building this shelf myself and you can come back tomorrow.” He feels terrible for sending Crowley out in this frigid weather, but it’s been a long day. “It’s getting late, anyway.”

“Fine, fine,” Crowley responds at last. Something in his posture has shifted—almost ashamed. He slinks out of the door like a kicked puppy and into the dark.

“Night, angel,” he says over his shoulder.

Aziraphale sighs. As Crowley’s figure vanishes into the last evening traffic, a screw rolls out from under the white armchair. He bends over to pick it up and discovers the entire missing bag of parts hidden behind one of the chair’s legs.

The shop is quiet now, and Aziraphale completes the shelf in a somber silence that’s only punctuated by a single swear world under his breath when he drops it into place right on top of his toe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact this is named "i'm gay and it's what i Deserve" in google docs. i have never posted fic before so i'm Nervous but it's fine. also i am decidedly Not British so i'm doing my best.


	2. Chapter 2

Crowley lies in bed, pretending he hasn’t just gotten kicked out of Aziraphale’s bookshop for hiding some pieces of the IKEA shelf they were trying to build _together_. It was force of habit, really—after centuries of causing minor annoyances to draw millions closer to Hell at once, hiding some hardware was practically second nature.

Or, no, it’s not.

Honesty isn’t second nature for demons, but he’s also genetically angel. He has to be honest with himself, at least. What’s really force of habit is making excuses to spend more time with Aziraphale, and in his cold, tired fog, he’d forgotten a little subtlety. All of his brain functions feel so much slower in the winter.

“Fuckin, blankets. I need some more _blankets_ ,” he mutters into the cool air of his flat. There are already three layers piled on top, but two more appear on top with a _flumph_. He pulls them closer with covetous hands. Under the blankets is soft and warm. Under the blankets is safe.

Is it second nature to be kicked out of places?

Crowley didn’t mind having been kicked out of Heaven. It wasn’t warm, and he has trouble imagining it ever becoming warm. Eden, on the other hand… Eden was lush, tropical, just on the edge of hot-and-too-humid. It had been the perfect place for a giant, demonic python to spend his days, sleeping in the sun during the day and exploring every crevice of the garden under the stars. In the old days, Crawly had known Eden like he knew the tips of his forked tongue. And then his curiosity had got the better of him—what would happen if someone ate a fruit from the forbidden tree? Crawly didn’t have the right teeth to bite an apple, but the desire to know just one more thing about Eden overwhelmed him. So he convinced Eve to eat the apple, despite everything God had said, and she told him everything about Good and Evil, Love and Shame, Life and Death. Then she told Adam, and the rest is history.

But the ideas are still with Crowley. He’d already known about Good and Evil—of course he knew, he’d fallen—but the way Eve described it, they’re two sides of the same coin. Always meant to go together. One cannot exist without the other. He wouldn’t need to be on Earth if not for Aziraphale, and Aziraphale wouldn’t need to be on Earth if not for him.

The bookshop is an Eden too, albeit a dusty, dry one. If there are sunbeams to be had, one manages to trickle through the window. When it rains, the whole world seems contained in the pages of Aziraphale’s books. Not that he reads, unless it’s over Aziraphale’s shoulder, but the knowledge of six millennia is vast and surrounding nonetheless.

The soft weight of the blankets calms Crowley’s nerves somewhat. Five layers of quilt, wool, and down will do that to a person, human or not. He curls himself into a tighter ball. The world fades into dreamless sleep.

Crowley returns to consciousness still wrapped in blankets, with the unshakable feeling that it’s very early in the morning. He peeks out from under the covers to look at the clock. _4:32_ , it blinks at him in bright red. Aziraphale may have said he could come back today, but he almost definitely didn’t mean this soon.

He tosses and turns, trying to go back to sleep, but the reality sets in that he just won’t be able to. _4:56_ , the clock says. The damned sun won’t even be up for another three hours. Everything is terrible.

Restlessness demands that Crowley get up, so he slides out of the bed and wraps himself up in a cardigan. It’s one of the few real articles of clothing he owns, besides sunglasses, and he’d borrowed it from Aziraphale one winter a decade ago. The fabric is warm, fuzzy, and cream-colored, and its existence in his flat is so utterly embarrassing that he never wears it unless he’s sure no one will see. (The cardigan has survived several rapid teleportations to underneath the bed when Hastur and Ligur came for surprise visits.)

He pads across the frigid tile floor, and his hand barely brushes the switch before the full-spectrum lights click on, illuminating his plants.

“Good morning, vegetable matter,” he growls. Leaves begin to quiver. “You’re getting misted early today.”

He paces around the room, inspecting the plants one at a time. Everyone is still up to his standards, so he won’t be removing anyone yet.

“Good. I’m in a terrible mood already this morning, and particular ones of you are on thin _fucking_ ice.” Sharply executed spritzes punctuate his words. “I’ve cultivated you lot very _specifically_ , and if anyone has the roots to disobey me….”

The sentence goes unfinished as he thinks to himself about what he’s been cultivating them for. His plants tremble, no doubt somehow imagining what horrors Crowley could work.

The room is warm and humid from the combined efforts of the grow lights and the plant mister. Each plant is lustrous, glossy green, with the exception of two fuzzy ones and a handful with red or purple leaves. Some are in bloom, all of their energy dedicated to replacing the past flowers that Crowley meticulously dead-heads. There’s no point in letting them fruit, anyway; the plants are there to look good.

The sky might be brightening over the London skyline. Crowley is thankful that his plant routine takes so long. A reasonable human could be out and about 45 minutes from now, although they wouldn’t be happy about it. If he goes now, he can stop by one of the little bakeries in Soho that Aziraphale likes and spend some time agonizing about what kind of pastries to get.

Crowley takes the cardigan off, placing it under his pillow where he can find it again later. A leather jacket replaces it, appearing one sleeve at a time as he pulls it on over his rumpled shirt. It’s not nearly as cozy as the cardigan, but it ought to keep him warm enough to make it out to the Bentley, and more importantly, it maintains his look.

After driving past the bookshop several times, Crowley eventually decides to park six blocks to the west, walk an additional block away to the tiny, hole-in-the-wall bakery, and then walk back to the bookshop. This is a perfectly reasonable way to kill time, he tells himself.

The interior smells like bread still baking, with notes of fruit jam and melted chocolate. Employees are just about finished filling the display cases, and there are no customers besides Crowley. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looms over the muffins. The strawberry and white chocolate ones catch his eye, glazed in shining pink jam and lined up in neat rows. They remind him vaguely of Aziraphale, but right now anything would. Oh, but there are chocolate muffins, too, topped with toasted almond slices.

“Damn it,” he says, and one of the bakers suffers a painful burn from the inside of an oven door. She runs some cold water over it while Crowley moves from the muffins to the loaves of sourdough. Some are plain, some have herbs, others are intricately braided and scored into works of golden-brown art.

After inspecting every baked good in the shop with nearly as much attention as he pays his plants, Crowley returns to the muffins.

“Ah, two of the strawberry, and one of the chocolate-almond,” he tells the woman behind the counter. She takes them out, angry red burn visible through her clear plastic glove. They go inside a small, white paper bag, and Crowley pays for them.

“Do you get bad burns often?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Occupational hazard.”

Crowley leaves the warmth of the bakery, back into the morning chill. It’s clear out, and the stars are beginning to fade. The street lamps are still on, though, so it’s still far too early. He begins to head toward Aziraphale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have very weird ideas about the Original Sin apparently? this is what i get for being raised atheist lmao.  
> someone get this man a heat lamp.
> 
> anyway, thank y'all for reading and giving me so much love! i'm available on twitter @goblinamoroso if you wanna chat/twit that Good Content at me :^)


	3. Chapter 3

Aziraphale doesn’t really sleep, of course. What he does is more like meditating while re-reading a book, letting the night spin around him. It passes the time between days as well as sleeping, allowing him to unwind and reflect without sacrificing his whole consciousness. Besides, when he does sleep (which he has done, once or twice, at Crowley’s suggestion), his dreams are plagued by angels, calling out to him in haunting, echoed tones that he should return to Heaven, that he’s been on Earth too long and can no longer serve his purpose effectively. He doesn’t know if his higher-ups are really trying to communicate with him, but it scares him to imagine leaving Earth behind.

Early in the morning, his rest is disturbed by the sound of something hitting the upstairs window. Definitely not hard enough to break it, but hard enough to make a noise. Aziraphale stands up, setting the book down on his bedside table. Outside on the pavement below stands a shadowed, lanky figure in black, one arm raised as if to throw something, and the other holding a paper bag that looks starkly white in the dim dawn. _Crowley_.

Aziraphale waves, tilting his head in confusion.

“What are you doing here?” he mouths through the window. Crowley holds up the bag, but offers no other explanation.

Aziraphale comes down from his flat into the bookshop proper to find that Crowley has already let himself in, bringing a cold draft through the door with him.

“What are you _doing_ here?” he repeats. Crowley hardly ever comes back this soon after he’s sent off, unless he needs something very urgently.

“I brought you breakfast,” Crowley says, shrugging. “Figured you’d need the energy if we’re going to get any work done today.”

“Crowley, you didn’t need to come back _this_ early—”

“Shut up, angel.” He holds out the bag again, shaking it impatiently. There are some soft, heavy objects inside, and the hungry, traitorous part of Aziraphale’s brain _really_ hopes they’re muffins from that bakery he likes. “I want to get rid of your terrible wallpaper.”

Aziraphale takes the bag and looks inside. They are, in fact, the muffins he was hoping for.

“Oh, my dear, you didn’t have to do this,” he says. “It wasn’t that bad, I really just overreacted—”

“Shut _up_ , angel.”

They discuss options in the upstairs flat. Aziraphale, as usual, thinks things are fine as they are, but if he _did_ change anything, he’d want the walls to be a clean, pleasant cream.

“Cream? Really?” Crowley wrinkles his nose, picking up Aziraphale’s crumbs with his index finger. “I was hoping you’d go for something a little bolder. A _color_ , perhaps.”

“Oh, and I suppose you want something like red or black?” Aziraphale takes his turn to wrinkle his nose.

“No!” Crowley immediately shakes his head, and then shakes his head at himself for shaking his head. “Red and black with these bookshelves? I’m not trashy, angel.”

“What, then?”

Aziraphale can just barely see that Crowley has closed his eyes behind his sunglasses. He looks deep in thought, reflecting on his undoubtedly bizarre concept of this increasingly bizarre idea. A second-hand bookshop, _really_. As if Aziraphale hadn’t already been doing that.

“Purple,” Crowley says, after an extended silence.

“ _What_?”

“Only one wall, though,” he continues. “The front one, maybe, and the rest can be a nice steely grey.”

“Does that go with the octopus?” Aziraphale asks, already knowing that the point is for the octopus not to match.

“Nope.”

The shop’s dingy, 200-year-old wallpaper sloughs off like so much snakeskin. Aziraphale is surprised it hadn’t just peeled off all by itself earlier, and he’s not sure whether it was his miracle keeping it up for so long, or Crowley’s grumbling taking it down now.

Paint—purple, grey, or otherwise—does not appear once they finish with the wallpaper. The sun has been properly up for a while, though, and the morning shines through the windows. Crowley takes off his sunglasses, just for a few seconds, to blink into the light.

“Slept horribly last night,” he remarks into the dusty, disturbed air, in Aziraphale’s general direction. “Might lie down for a little bit, I think.” He doesn’t actually lie down, though, just curls up in the black armchair and pulls the collar of his jacket up around his neck. Aziraphale watches him fall asleep in the span of about three minutes. Is it his fault Crowley slept so poorly?

While Crowley naps, Aziraphale occupies his time carrying away the rolls of peeled-off wallpaper. The Soho streets are starting to open up, so he tapes a sheet of paper to the bookshop door which reads: “ _Closed until further notice for renovations._ ” That should do, at least for the time being.

The trip to dispose of the morning’s trash takes a detour, and Aziraphale finds himself looking at paint. Purple and steel-grey had sounded nice, but he just isn’t sure. And it is rightfully his decision to make, so he looks over all of his options.

He wakes Crowley up by dropping three cans of interior paint onto the rug with a succession of dull _thuds_. (They were rather heavier than he had wanted them to be.)

“Good morning again, my dear,” he says. The demon looks around the bookshop blearily, then runs a hand through his hair to push it out of his face and makes what passes for eye contact.

“That’s not purple,” Crowley says. He is correct. Two of the cans are a light, cool grey, and the third is a deep, verdant, emerald green. “It almost seems like you’re trying to make the octopus look less bad.”

Within the limits of a paint can’s physical capacity, they should not be able to cover the eight total walls that make up the bookshop and its back room, but supernatural beings like angels and demons rarely let things like “surface area” and “volume” get in their way. The paint they have will stretch as far as they need, and cover everything in one smooth coat, because of course it will. Neither of them have actually done interior decorating by hand, so it goes exactly as they expect it to.

Except—Crowley’s hair keeps falling in his face as he paints. Aziraphale thinks he’s going to go mad if he hears him blow it out of the way again.

“Is there _nothing_ you can do to pull it out of the way?”

“Angel, it’s long, but it’s not _that_ long,” Crowley shoots back. “Unless you have some miraculous idea, shoulder-length hair just can’t do that.”

Aziraphale actually does have an idea, but the miracle will be convincing Crowley to let him do it. “Come here, dear,” he says, hoping desperately that he will.

“What are you going to do to me?” Crowley sighs, but walks around the shelves to where Aziraphale is sitting in the white armchair.

“Sit on the floor here, I’m going to fix it.” He obliges, settling himself between Aziraphale’s knees and leaning back against the seat of the chair. Aziraphale’s fingers probe his scalp, teasing out a part down the middle of his hair. Taking locks one at a time, he begins to braid, pulling the hair together and out of Crowley’s face.

As he reaches the halfway-point of the first braid, the angel tilts Crowley’s head without thinking so that he can work at a better angle. His breath nearly catches in his throat when Crowley seems to melt into the inside of his thigh.

“Can you take your glasses off? I can’t quite get this bit behind your ear.” And Crowley does, setting them down in his lap. Aziraphale is sure he has his eyes closed now; wouldn’t want to scare anyone who peeked in the shop window.

He finishes, hair elastics pulled from a place where they hadn’t existed.

“There, I’m done now. That better?”

Crowley stands up, puts his sunglasses back on, and runs a hand over the pair of stubby, French-braided pigtails that Aziraphale’s nimble fingers created.

“Very good, angel. I’m sure I look ridiculous.” He does, kind of, but it’s an endearing sort of ridiculous. “Thwarting my wiles by keeping anyone from taking me seriously.” Crowley laughs, and it’s perfect. He’s perfect, Aziraphale thinks, in his feigned evilness that gives way so easily to warmth.

They finish painting by lunchtime, without so much as a strand of Crowley’s hair escaping, and they go to have lunch together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. chekhov voice: "if you put an ugly octopus in the first chapter, it must continue to be made fun of in the third chapter"  
> 2\. i got comphy new headphones so i can listen to queen while writing without my ears hurting! can i hear a wahoo  
> 3\. if someone draws braid crowley (please) i will yell
> 
> thank you all so much, your comments really keep me going. <3 my twitter handle is still @goblinamoroso if you wanna chat.


	4. Chapter 4

The events of the morning were so overwhelming that Crowley has to go back to his flat immediately after lunch. Aziraphale—welcoming him inside in the early hours of the morning, getting different paint, letting him fall asleep in the shop, braiding his hair, sitting Crowley down between his legs, skimming his fingertips across Crowley’s scalp, tilting Crowley’s head so he could work—oh, _Aziraphale_. And he, the smitten demon so melted in an angel’s ( _the_ angel’s) gentle grasp, had just leaned into the warmth that radiated even through Aziraphale’s woolen trousers, betraying his Devil-given purpose in favor of his most base instinct: seeking heat, and curling every aspect of his form to absorb it.

He has long since accepted that he is in love with Aziraphale, and he knows Aziraphale loves him, too. Nothing else would explain their long nights, longer history. But _in_ love? Not that Crowley can see.

He stares into his bathroom mirror, examining his hair. The pigtails are tight against his head, and every angle of his face is sharper without the wave of hair that usually falls in front of his ears. Aziraphale did a good job, down to the black hair elastics that finish just an inch of loose braid. When and where did he even learn to do that?

Crowley is hit with the sudden mental image of Aziraphale sitting with a gaggle of teenage girls in Greece, enthralled by the motion of their hands before he made his own attempt. The first few probably sucked—Aziraphale has always liked to learn things organically, without any cheating.

He goes back to bed, sinking into the mattress and covering himself in blankets yet again. The things he would do to have Aziraphale here with him—not even to do anything dirty, just to talk and be warm—and there he is again, thinking about the angel. Winter does terrible things to snake-demons.

Slowly, sleep takes him. In his dreams, he is draped in an olive tree, black scales absorbing every ray of the Mediterranean sun that shines down.

Crowley awakens with a jolt.

“Shit!” He had told Aziraphale, in his rush to go home the day before, that he would be back in the morning. He looks to the clock.

 _7:24_ , it blinks. Not bad, given that he’d fallen asleep just after 2 the previous afternoon. He leaves the flat all in a rush. Aziraphale had seemed like he wanted to talk about something after lunch.

Aziraphale blinks at him in surprise when he turns up on the bookshop’s doorstep again.

“Sorry I didn’t bring breakfast again,” Crowley says. “I was in a hurry, wasn’t really thinking—”

“It’s fine,” Aziraphale replies, looking shocked and somehow… amused? “Come in, dear.”

“Oh, no. What is it, angel?” He hasn’t forgotten to put sunglasses on, which he confirms by smacking himself on the side of the face. Something else, then. He whirls around to look at his reflection in the window. “ _Oh_.”

Crowley had entirely neglected to take out the braids yesterday, and then slept on them. Some of the hair has escaped, and the resulting effect is a crimson-auburn cloud of frizz that surrounds his face almost (nearly, but not quite) like a halo.

“That’s a bit ironic,” he says, but the world is distant. Crowley hasn’t seen himself with anything even remotely resembling one of _those_ in 6015 years. Suddenly the fresh-paint smell in the shop is stronger, and he feels like he’s been disembowelled and embalmed. Someone’s fingers are in his hair again.

“These really aren’t meant to be worn two days in a row,” Aziraphale murmurs, loosening the last strands of the left braid. “Do you want me to redo them?”

Crowley shakes his head.

“It’s just as well, I suppose,” he continues. “Would you look at that?” Crowley’s hair, all unravelled now, retains a tighter wave. He runs a hand through it once more, smoothing the last of the frizz.

“I—” Crowley makes some inarticulate noises, and then gives up. “What are we doing now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter than i wanted it to be but that's because we're going to have a plot now.
> 
> thank ny'all for reading <3


	5. Chapter 5

“I don’t really know, this was _your_ idea,” Aziraphale replies. “Furniture, paint—I can’t help but think we’re doing things a little bit out of order—what’s next?”

Crowley looks around the shop, and then takes his sunglasses off, golden eyes flicking around the large room.

The bookshop is so different after only a week, and yet it’s still familiar: The old bookcases mingle uncertainly with the new shelves, but the old light fixtures hang over the new chairs (and the _blessed_ octopus) with the same tired ease they always have. Aziraphale remembers when it was all brand-new, shining and completely free of dust. And then he’d settled in, and now, 200 years later, Crowley is stirring everything up.

“The—ah, the rugs are probably fine,” Crowley starts. “Could use some cleaning, maybe.”

Aziraphale waves a hand and lifts the dust out of the various rugs, careful not to disturb the chalk circles that lie beneath some. He’d really rather those stay hidden unless he actually needs them. Angels don’t lie, but they do… omit certain truths for the safety and sanity of their friends. At least, that’s what this angel tells himself.

“Oh, alright.”

“Did you want to take them outside in the cold?” Aziraphale asks, raising one eyebrow.

Crowley shrugs, and Aziraphale gets the vague impression that he doesn’t know how rugs are cleaned.

“Is there anything else you’d like to change, my dear, or are you satisfied?”

There are many things which Aziraphale would like to change, but he restrains himself to quiet acts of service and a pet name (“my dear boy,” “my dear,” or just “dear” if the phrase fits) that can be swept under the carpet like a holy summoning circle. Fondness is acceptable, especially if he does not report back to Heaven _who_ the object of his fondness is, but all things must be reported and Love will not be one of them.

Crowley considers the question, looking around the bookshop still. There’s something sharply clever and dangerous dancing in his eyes, like he’s about to make a snarky remark. Then it softens.

“Do you have a blanket?” he asks. Crowley is already wearing the same leather jacket as yesterday, on top of a cashmere scarf and a presumably long-sleeved shirt, but he also has a light flush of pink on the tip of his nose and above his cheekbones.

Aziraphale nods, and summons a thick blanket. Out of courtesy to Crowley’s aesthetic, it’s dark, in black and shades of green, but the pattern is an old habit….

“ _Tartan_ ,” Crowley mutters. “You’re a bastard, angel.” He takes his jacket off and wraps the blanket around his shoulders. It drapes across his shoulders, reminding Aziraphale of something in the distant, unforgettable past.

“There were a few key details of this plan that you seem to have forgotten, though,” he says, and the sharp look returns all at once, splitting his face into a wicked grin. “This isn’t going to be much of a bookshop without books you’re willing to sell.” Ah, _there_ it is.

Aziraphale responds with his own sweet smile.

“Actually, my dear, I took the liberty of finding some sources yesterday, after you left,” he replies. “Charity shops will sell books in bulk, as well as libraries and some recyclers. And once we open properly, people will bring in their own to trade out.” He hadn’t meant to say _we_ , but there it was, out in the open. Everything holds perfectly still as he waits to see if Crowley noticed.

“Oh, look at you, angel. Being all clever.” Crowley does not seem to have noticed. The world can continue spinning, now that Aziraphale releases his breath.

It really does make sense for the bookshop to become both of theirs when it reopens. This was Crowley’s idea, after all, upsetting the little world that Aziraphale has created. They’ll have to change the name, though. “A. Z. Fell & co. Antique Books” would be both inaccurate for the shop’s contents and unfair to his partner—

 _Partner_? He shakes that phrase out of his head.

“None of those will be open for quite a few hours, so we have some time to kill.”

There are very few things that Crowley and Aziraphale are great at doing, but killing time is one of them. For most of the morning, they lounge on the backroom’s couch, discussing cat names.

“Crepe.”

“Angel, we are not naming a cat Crepe. That’s just _asking_ for it to escape and get found flat as its namesake in the middle of the street.”

“Oh, fine.”

“What about… Ansaphone?”

“No.”

Crowley has graduated from wrapping the blanket around his shoulders to having it all the way over his head like a hooded cloak, yellow eyes almost glowing from beneath its shadow. He sits with his knees to his chest, with his back to the couch’s armrest so that he can face Aziraphale. He looks happy, and comfortable, and if Aziraphale can give him those feelings as long as the world lasts (the Antichrist and the end of the world lurk beyond), preferably without Heaven and Hell finding out and destroying them both, that will be all Aziraphale needs.

“Manslayer?”

“Crowley, _NO_.”

Aziraphale convinces Crowley to transport boxes of books in the back of the Bentley (“Really, angel? It’s not a cargo van.”), and they drive from location to location, accumulating probably more books than should fit in the boot and backseat of a car from the 1920s. It’s a mixed bag—some of the boxes go into the car with better-looking covers than they did before Crowley picked them up, but a lot of them are perfectly normal, shabby-edging-on-trashy paperbacks.

And then it’s over, and they’re both back in the bookshop in the evening. The air is starting to freeze as the sun sets, and as they stand on the pavement in the dusk, it dawns upon Aziraphale that they’ve spent the whole day together. He doesn’t want it to end.

“I have some bottles in the back room,” he says. There’s a piece of bait that Crowley can hardly ever resist, especially if the interior of the bookshop is warmer than the outdoors.

“You’re tempting me, angel. If you keep that up, I’ll be out of a job come springtime.” Crowley grins that wicked grin again, and then opens the shop door. “After you.”

“Y’know, we still have an Antichrist to godfather,” Crowley says, after a few glasses of wine. “How are we going to pull that off?” The sunglasses are off again, and the blanket is back around his shoulders. His hair is beginning to relax back into its softer natural wave, to Aziraphale’s great disappointment.

“I don’t _know_ ,” he replies. “These things keep being _your_ idea. How are we going to manage it?”

“One of us could nanny,” Crowley says, at great length. “But that only covers one of us. What goes well with a nanny?”

Aziraphale delves deep into his knowledge of upper-class British stereotypes that the American family is likely to jump at.

“A gardener, maybe,” and as soon as he says it, something strange snaps through Crowley’s eyes. “Hmm? Are you alright, dear?”

A curious stillness comes across the demon’s face as he closes his eyes and tilts his head back. Aziraphale watches his forked tongue trace around his lips as nothing else in Crowley’s expression changes.

“That’d have to be you,” he eventually says. “I could never do the groundskeeper thing—too many bugs. And gardening isn’t exactly the Evil thing to do.” Something in his tone is very nearly nervous, like Crowley is hiding something.

“No, it’ll have to be you. I’d kill half the garden before the boy’s fifth birthday, you have to do it.” He is very obviously lying, all traces of demonic wiles washed away by the wine.

“What if I want to be the nanny?” Aziraphale asks, mostly for the sake of argument. “I’m sure you could do fantastic things with poisonous plants, my dear boy.”

For a single moment, one that sends a chill down his spine, Aziraphale can see fear in Crowley’s eyes as they snap open to look directly at him.

“I’m not being the gardener.”

“Oh come on, I would be a great nanny. I’ve got the whole ‘comforting guidance’ thing down pat.”

“ _Please_ , Aziraphale.”

Now _there_ ’s something Crowley never says. Aziraphale sits in stunned silence.

“Besides, you might be comforting, angel, but you _know_ I’d look better as Mary Poppins.” One eyebrow rises, daring Aziraphale to disagree.

So this is the agreement they come to: Aziraphale will be the gardener in the morning, and Crowley will be the nanny in the afternoon. At lunch, they will switch off, because it’s too obvious to have both of them in such direct conflict.

At the end of the night, Crowley is curled around Aziraphale’s waist, half in his lap, and fast asleep. It’s far from the first time he’s spent the night, but rare is the occasion where he traps Aziraphale in place like this. The nearest book is just inches out of reach, so he lets himself relax to the sound of Crowley breathing, committing every curl of hair and tiny freckle to memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took me Way Too Long to figure out, ughh. something about these scenes just did not want to be written, but i forced them to be finished (important) and good (also important, but less so). thank you all for reading!
> 
> 1\. the dusk/dawn joke was... way too tempting.  
> 2\. haha jawa crowley  
> 3\. i don't know fuck or shit about alcohol my dudes, sorry


	6. Chapter 6

The Garden of Eden seems strange tonight. The stars spread out above, impossibly far and yet close enough to touch above Crowley’s head. That’s normal—he always feels like his creations are close, and they are, at least on a cosmic scale. No, the strange part is the plants. Some of them are in pots, and a lot more of them are poisonous than he remembers. That doesn’t seem like a responsible choice for a garden that was built for a couple of newly created humans. But then again, Crowley’s not the one in charge, never has been.

At the center of it all, though, the apple tree stands as it always has, gnarled trunk supporting branches that sway and leaves that rustle even though the air is still. The Apple hangs low from a branch, shining and glossy red in a single, improbable sunbeam. Crowley steps toward it, reaching one hand out. He won’t bite it— _can’t_ bite it, python teeth are like needles, thin and pointy, meant only for grabbing and swallowing—but he can hold it, cradle the fruit in the palm of his hand and press his lips against it and imagine he can taste the juice that hides just beyond the skin.

As Crowley finally comes to the place where the Apple hangs, there’s motion in the corner of his eye. His head swivels to look before he can really think about it, and sees the tail of a rodent disappearing into the brush. Instincts take over—even though he’s never had to eat, the scent of a rat will make any snake want to hunt—and then he’s sliding through the undergrowth, following the rodent.

Beneath Eden’s trees, the night is thicker and darker. Human eyes could not see, but snake eyes have access to the infra-red, and Crowley can see a white-hot mammalian metabolism carving a clear path. It scampers between ferns and roots, feet just brushing the moss and fallen leaves as it runs for its life. Every few yards, a stray shaft of moonlight finds its way through the canopy, and illuminates the rat, turning its fur bright, shining silver.

The rat keeps running, and Crowley keeps chasing. Or is he Crawly again now, on his belly in the leaf litter like some uncanny, supernatural animal? The thought of returning to his old name hurts, but he doesn’t slow down, doesn’t stop hunting, until the hurt is far behind him and oh, yeah, there’s also no more ground in front of him.

The rat had, at some point in the chase, come full circle and run up the apple tree. It perches on the tip of a twig, whiskers twitching. Crowley rises, drawing back for the strike.

And then the rat opens a dove’s wings, and flutters off of the branch in a flash of white feathers. Crowley’s neck stretches, but he falls short, needle-teeth grasping at the air where the rat—bird?—had been. In his shock, he can’t recover the strike, and his body tumbles out of the tree like undignified, muscular noodles. He lands back inside his human-shaped body, which still stands in front of the Apple.

He leans in to the Apple’s smooth skin, cupping it in his hands. Tentatively, he presses his lips to it. It’s cool, and then it’s warm, and not the Apple anymore, and he’s kissing Aziraphale under the forbidden apple tree in the moonlight, under the stars he created.

Crowley breaks away to look Aziraphale, and it really is _him_ , eyes sea-blue and sky-green all at once and fixed on Crowley’s own, staring with the same tenderness that he always does. Crowley leans back in, embracing Aziraphale around the chest like he’s always wanted to, but—

There’s nothing there. No chest, no shoulders, no neck. Just Aziraphale’s head, hanging from the tree where the Apple should have been, with all the gentle love in the world still in his eyes. Crowley reaches for him, grasping for where the rest of his body should be. The garden is gone, too, and foggy darkness presses in on all sides. There’s no tree, no sound of leaves rustling in a nonexistent wind, just Crowley’s heartbeat growing ever louder and louder, the burn of gathering tears, and his shaking hands.

Aziraphale’s head plummets to the ground in slow motion, but Crowley can’t catch it, because he doesn’t have hands anymore. He’s a snake again. The head falls where Crowley’s feet should have been, but he doesn’t have those either. It makes a sickening thud when it hits the ground, accompanied by the soft crunch of it landing in a pile of shed snakeskin that pools in every direction of the pocket of darkness that holds Crowley and Aziraphale’s head.

It just sits there, because it’s a severed head, all light gone from Aziraphale’s blue-green eyes. His blood oozes into the pile of snakeskin. Crowley falls onto what used to be his knees, coiling around what’s left of his angel.

“—dear boy,” Aziraphale says, shaking Crowley’s shoulder. “Are you alright? You were squeezing me rather hard.”

Crowley is awake, and Aziraphale is safe, it was all a dream, everything is fine. He tries to open his mouth to tell Aziraphale not to worry, but all he can do is bury his face in his angel’s side and breathe in the scent of feather dust, old leather-bound books, and honey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i, uh, don't really have a good explanation for this chapter except that there's a lot of weird symbolism in there.
> 
> thank you, as always, for reading and leaving such sweet comments <3


End file.
